Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ode to the Madison police blotter

Most of the time, the incident reports put out by the Madison Police Department are dry and straight-forward affairs. Sometimes, however, whether it be due to a different author filling in or just the usual writer feeling a little extra saucy, the good citizen's of Madison are gifted with gems like this:
Also present in the PDQ at the time of the gun drop were three Town of Madison Police Officers. They were not near the cash register, but over near the area where one would glean a cup of coffee, and as such did not see the gun drop.
That's pure, blotter poetry right there.

On extra special days, though the report itself is pretty dry, we also get ridiculousness like screaming, naked men.

Mostly, however, I have to admit that I'm glad the blotter exists and is relatively easy to access. Beyond being a source of some entertainment, it's a valuable tool for keeping up with what's happening in our community. I can only hope that its various authors continue to take stabs into the literary dark from time to time, so that we might all glean a bit more from the story.

2 comments:

M Big Mistake said...

We get UW blotter reports here at work. My favorite was a report of three white males who attempted to throw a Molotov cocktail at the Lincoln statue on Bascom Hill but the device did not ignite. The suspects fled on foot and evaded police.

I've often suspected that their problem was that they had thrown a regular cocktail, not a Molotov cocktail.

That makes me laugh every time I think about it.

capper said...

My favorite from the local blotter in my parts was from years ago, before this new fangled intertube thingy caught one.

The story was about a man, in a car with a woman, who took off running naked through the neighborhood when a K-9 cop knocked on the steamed up window.

The officer unleashed his partner, which chase the subject and bit him in the snausage.

The man later told police that he ran because he didn't want his wife to find out he was having an affair.

My question still was, and still is: How did he explain the bite marks on the snausage?

The Lost Albatross